Week 5, day 5,6 & 7 – just walk

Day 5: – tried, had moments of focus.. But was so excited, so invigorated, so ecstatic over ongoing projects in my life… That I simply couldn’t keep the mind chatted at bay..

Day 6: My concentration is great, the body feels phenomenal.
Quieting the mind is proving harder than ever before. I’ve done more prayer (on gratitude) and worked more with the mantra this session.

Day 7: experiments in walking meditation while rambling through my favourite park on Earth. The Mantra times with my footsteps, and as I take my deepest breath after a long steep climb, I look out unto the valley extending out below me and … Quiet and peace are effortless again.

My pleasure. I did have a lovely day of fasting, thank you. I ate no food from yesterday through 7 am this morning. I drank some yerba mate for energy – it also dulls hunger, and about 5 liters of water, I hope that’s not cheating! :-)

Interestingly, I didn’t get hungry and ended up being quite alert when I woke up today, even though I didn’t sleep much (thanks to the yerba mate). Most importantly, really did have a blissful feeling through much of yesterday and did quite a bit of writing, including a new post: http://amindfultraveler.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/why-do-you-travel/

I only did one session of 15 minutes of walking and 15 minutes of sitting, because I had the same feeling of intentionality in my other activities that I usually have from meditation. To the extent my other activities allow, I think I may try fasting a day a week as well.

I look forward to continuing to read about your growing practice. May it benefit you and all beings! :-)

A pleasure to read of your experience. Feels like you “took one for the team” as I was not up to fasting yesterday, not at all.
Fasting has so many benefits, and one of the reasons I like a one-day fast so much is that it makes me very mellow, and I can really get into my “zen” space (but then again, I don’t drink yerba!). They say on a longer fast, ex. a 1 week one, the energy levels come back to normal around day 2 or 3.

Once my work and life schedules get a bit more organized, I’ll be sticking to Sunday’s as my crown jewel day of the week – my day off from the everything. Fasting is such a perfect fit to this :)